INFLUENCE
WHY FRIDA KAHLO - artist statement from Linda Gair
Frida Kahlo's physical, emotional and psychological pain was life-long.
She contracted polio as a child, suffered a severely traumatic life-threatening body
injury as a young woman which plagued her health the rest of her life, had an almost
obsessive love for artist and husband Diego Rivera, her communist revolutionist
'underdog' leanings drove her philosophies in life, her affair with Leon Trotsky and
her love of all things indigenously Mexican, all caused her a deep anxiety, even pain.
My exhibition 'Dressed to Kill' takes inspiration from both Kahlo and the Mexican
'Day of the Dead' tradition. My new work, "Dressed to Kill" regards clothes as
sculptural objects possessed of a human quality. A recent long-promised adventure
to Mexico, in-particular to seek out Kahlo's famed 'Blue House' and the adjoining
home she shared beside Diego's house linked by a rooftop bridge and as many
works in public collections as I could find while there, has all played a major part in
the thinking and development behind my current work.
WHO'S WHO 2013
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